YouTube will begin offering feature films produced by at least one of the biggest Hollywood movie studios possibly as early as next month, according to an executive with a major entertainment company.

For months, Google, YouTube’s parent company, has been talking to the major film companies about launching an ad-supported, streaming movie service, two execs with knowledge of the negotiations told CNET News. “It’s not imminent,” said one of the executives. “But it’s going to happen. I would say you can expect to see it, if all goes well, sometime within the next 30 to 90 days.”

I’m forced to ask the somewhat stupid and obvious question: What the heck took YouTube so long? I’ve wondered for a long time why premium, professionally produced film and TV content hasn’t been available on YouTube. It seems like a natural fit doesn’t it? A site entirely devoted to video content and yet totally lacking in legal movies and TV shows.

Weird.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like watching clips of pets and that sort of thing as much as the next guy. But how many dumb user-generated videos can you sit through? After the first 500 of them you want to pull your hair out at the stupidity of some of the stuff on YouTube.

It makes me long for well scripted drama, historical movies, or even stupid romantic comedies. Well okay, that’s not true. I’ll skip the romantic comedies in favor of watching two hunters almost get nailed by an angry mother bear on YouTube. Continued…